Official AdBlock Plus app now available in the Play Store

Blocking ads on your device is moral grey area, but it’s hard to argue that it has benefits. AdBlock Plus is one of the most popular ad blocking plugins for browsers available, and it works extremely well. And luckily for Android users, an official app has made its way onto Google’s Play Store.

Most ad blocking apps right now require root, but AdBlock Plus is a little different. It’s compatible with almost all browsers in the Play Store without root, but only over WiFi. If you want ad-blocking over 3G, you’ll have to root your device. There’s just a few listed limitations to keep in mind if you install this app:

Also, Android does not allow ads to be blocked on SSL encrypted websites.

There’s still a few features missing from the bigger version of ABP, like whitelisting, but it’s a new app. I’m sure that’ll come eventually. Anybody ready to get this installed and improve your mobile browsing? Hit the download link below.

Born in southern Alabama, Jared spends his working time selling phones and his spare time writing about them. The Android enthusiasm started with the original Motorola Droid and an unhealthy obsession with fixing things that aren't broken. This accidentally led to being the go-to guy for anything more complicated than a toaster, which he considers more of a curse than a blessing. Jared is enrolled in online classes at the University of Phoenix, and spends his spare time on video games and listening to music.

http://www.bible-tech.com/ Justin A

how is this a moral gray area? I don’t want the offensive ads on my device, and so I choose to block all ads… Its no different from not looking at them. FYI I am viewing no ads on your site.

RTWright

This site gets way bogged down due to how much crap is backend loaded with the ads and all the social stuff they have going on. Even this posting system isn’t theirs, it’s an addition to the site and sometimes gets bogged down and slow to respond on some days. I’ve got Ad Blocker Plus and I don’t see ads on this site or any others. Matter of fact I’m rather sick of how overly used ads are now days.

You go to a site for information and it takes so long to load because it’s loading all of these stupid ad systems that I sometimes just give up on that site and go to another. It’s bad form, bad design, just plain bad period. Yeah yeah, I know, they make money off of that. To be totally honest, I’d rather pay a small annual fee to a site, or donate to them, just to get to be able to view it without ads.

Now having an Ad or two is fine, but a lot of sites have gone well overboard with that and this is not a Moral Gray or any other kind of area of judgement you can bring up. They’re just flat unwanted by the majority of the public or we wouldn’t use these ad blockers.

http://www.bible-tech.com/ Justin A

Thanks for the insight RTWright… I agree that many sites are over the top with ads, and I would also pay a couple of bucks a year for access. Take this site fore example, 36k plus subscribers at $5/yr would be over 150k, which I’m betting is more than this site brings in with ads, way more.

Darkcobalt

I think its a vicious cycle. The more people block ads the more sites have to put up. Effectively, every person blocking ads increases the pain point for others.

Can’t argue they slow the user experience down, and can’t argue against a paid system to go ad free. For me, I’d rather see ads than pay for some content, and I’d rather pay than see ads for others. Lots of sites with a “newspaper” background like WSJ, Globe & Mail, and others have gone to a pay model, and I just stopped going there, and so have many others. So effectively there are others out there who won’t pay, and refuse to allow ads. Where do we go from there?

At the end of the day, if there was an option for those willing to pay (subscription), an option for those who want free content (ads), then technically the moral gray area of ad blocking becomes a lot more defined IM(biased)O.

Brian

It is a Gray area because you are getting the content for free because of the adds. If we are talking from a moral stand point if you don’t want to see the ads that pay for the content, then don’t go to the site.

http://www.bible-tech.com/ Justin A

you get free content when you use an RSS feed reader. They don’t seem to mind that. It’s like me using a text-only browser (which I do sometimes).